Thursday, July 19, 2012

I've been working on my mitered square sock yarn blanket and have added lots of photos and explained the directions hopefully a bit better. My original tutorial is still the same, but I have added more directions to the end. The tutorial can be found here. You can also find it by clicking the Mitered Square Blanket Tutorial link on my sidebar under Tutorials and Patterns.

This is what I have done so far.

In order to take more photos for the tutorial, I've started these two scarves. The Zig-Zag Scarf on the left with the two offset squares is my daughter's idea. I'm thinking of reworking the other one on the right to look like the Zig-Zag Scarf.

A lot of the yarn in this basket came from trading with friends.

I hope you will check out my tutorial. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

I finished this granny square afghan in Cath Kidston like colors this past week. A week ago it was a stack of 108 blocks. We have been without internet and phone for almost 24 hours this past week. Before I had a chance to get back on my computer, a storm blew through with lots of wind and very little rain, and we lost electricity for a few hours. But, it was the middle of the afternoon so I was able to sit by a window and join the squares together.

I'm almost finished with the last two rounds of the border.

Here is the join between the squares. There are several different ways to join granny squares, but I really like the finished look of this method.

First hold two squares wrong sides together. You will be able to tell the right side of the granny square because the top row of stitches curves toward you as seen in the photo below.

I really like using this Bryson Tapestry Needle, but any yarn needle will work. I just attach the yarn with a knot and sew through the inside part of the top row of stitches.

I have a lot of yarn threaded in my needle. I was sewing a long row to the rest of the afghan.

This photo shows the up and down stitch going through the two inside loops of each block. When I come to an intersection, I sew through both loops so there are no gaps or holes there.

When I make granny squares I always work first on one side and then the other, turning my work after each round. If you continue to always join a new color on the same side of the square, eventually the square gets a kind of twisted, wonky look. This photo shows how the joining looks from the back side.